Skip to main content
Main

Ox-Tail Soup

A hearty soup made with ox tails, water, vegetables, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Ox-Tail Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine the ox-tails and water in a large pot.

  2. Add the coarse sea salt, carrots, onions, turnips, celery, cloves, black peppercorns, and savory herbs.

  3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 3 to 3½ hours.

  4. Remove the ox-tails.

  5. Strain the broth.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken with arrowroot or rice flour.

  2. Season with cayenne and salt to taste.

  3. Serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ox-tails
Release meat, gelatin and rich flavor into the long-simmered broth.
Arrowroot or rice flour (in the method)
Thickens the strained broth into a silkier body without clouding it.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth as they soften and release flavor into the broth.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and body to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after boiling. A rolling boil emulsifies fat and clouds the broth, while a gentle simmer keeps it clear and lets collagen from the ox-tails slowly dissolve into a rich, well-flavored liquid.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, celery, clove):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More ox tail soup recipes

Clear 5 See all 157 →

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipesCelery StewCelery Stew25 recipes